Organoleptic & Sensory Evaluation: Product Research and Development

Organoleptic properties are the aspects of food, water or other substances that an individual experiences via the senses—including taste, sight, smell, and touch.

Sensory evaluation is an invaluable tool for Quality Control as well as Research and Development. Customers perceive product quality with their senses, and as a result, organoleptic evaluations are an essential component of any Quality Control evaluations.

The aim of the sensory testing is to describe the product. Distinguishing two or more products: are there any differences between the quality, its magnitude and direction. Performing: the expert or the consumer. So the enjoyment is the sum of the organoleptic characteristics.

Application:

• Industry or official quality control
• The impact of technological and recipe change
• Determine shelf life
• Product Development
• Consumer like
• Competitive product

Various Organoleptic Factors

SIGHT

• The appearance of the food to our eyes is the most critical parameter. One eats with the eyes first!
• It is this feature of our senses the judges the food for its freshness, colour, appeal, dullness, glossy, juicy etc.
• If the eye appeal is not good then the food goes in for a complete rejection.

SMELL

• The smell of the food is defined as flavour in cooking and it can be of 3 different types-

1. odour- odour contributes to the pleasure of eating. Volatile molecules from the food stimulate olfactory nerves and they guide our perceptions of food being sweet, bitter, spicy, sour or acidic. All these perceptions are associated with taste.
2. Aroma- is the smell of the food mixed with the taste buds. Flavour can be obtained by smelling but the aroma of the dish, one has to taste the dish.

TASTE

• Taste is registered on the taste buds on the tongue. The taste buds register the food being salty, acidic, bitter, spicy or pungent.
• There is another taste known as the sixth sense, which is an undefined taste. It is known as umami factor in Japanese. This taste cannot be described as it is a mix of many tastes that coat the tongue but one can feel the sensation on the palate for a long time.

TOUCH

• This feature of the food can be defined in many ways such as texture, mouthfeel and even temperature of the food. We all expect tea coffee or soup to be very hot or chilled. If not served at the right temperature, it will be rejected.
• Many adjectives such as crunchy, soft, brittle, smooth describe the texture of food.
• Texture can also be described as a consistency. Liquids, semi-liquids

SOUND

• The crispy bite of fresh sliced onions or the crackling sound of the crispies satisfies the sound element of the food.

One can thus see that the balance of organoleptic tasting completes the feeling of satisfaction. If even one element in the meal is missing, the overall experience does not seem to be right.

The tasting of food is not only limited to the food trials and trade tests but also been done for F & B industry. Today tea, coffee and wine experts are being hired for tasting. Tasters are people whose sensitivity and consistency have been established by training and repeated tests. Such people are called connoisseurs.

Categories of Organoleptic Tests

Discrimination Test

These types of tests are performed to differentiate products from one another. They are 3 major types

• Paired comparison test– several pairs of coded samples are given, different from each other. They are tested and evaluated.
• Duo-trio test– the panel is presented with three samples of which one is the original product, the second is similar to the original, the third is the sample product to be tested. The comparison is then done to reach a conclusion.
• Triangular test– this method employs three samples, two of which are identical, while the third is different.

Hedonic Test

Also known as consumer test, hedonic tests are based on pleasant/ unpleasant experiences of consumers or an honest expression of a consumer’s personal liking or disliking.

These tests are generally carried out on more than 50 end users. It is limited to a particular market segment.

Numerical Scoring Test

This testing is done by a trained panellist who follows the sensory characteristics   and marking is done on a score sheet on various parameters such as appearance, flavour, taste and mouthfeel, temperature etc,

Objective Evaluation

• Many food processing industries, hotels and restaurants, resort to the objective method of evaluation.
• In these tests, the quality of food is measured along various parameters such as moisture, freshness, specific gravity, viscosity, microbial contamination.
• Such tests are conducted by the use of sophisticated gadgets and are more reliable than sensory evaluations.